


"On the Bitterness of Orange Marmalade (And Other Things)"

by Creamteasforever



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fatlock, Food, M/M, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 07:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2058876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Creamteasforever/pseuds/Creamteasforever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock’s reluctance to eat during cases gets him into trouble during an investigation. Fatlock fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"On the Bitterness of Orange Marmalade (And Other Things)"

**Author's Note:**

> Fluffy fic (a revisit of kamekdrawsblobs’s standard Fatlock prompt, as per “Tea Time”). As it’s me, it’s also plotty. 
> 
> Enjoy!

“A murder,” Sherlock said, with relish. “Excellent. I’ve never been so bored.”

“You mean to say, isn’t it nice that there’s been no hideous crimes in the last month for us to worry about?”

“Oh, same difference.”

They were walking back to Baker Street – the crime scene was only a few blocks away from their flat, and the moment Sherlock read the text from Lestrade he’d shot off without even waiting to find a cab (though he had been puffing a bit by the time they’d arrived). A nice, juicy problem had met them there: – two men dead in a flat, identically dressed, identical haircut, almost identical resemblance…but not, apparently, related. One of them had dyed hair, makeup, even heel lifts, to match the other man. Lestrade had patiently begun questioned the fourteen neighbours in the building – fourteen suspects? John didn’t envy the man his task - who all started explaining at once how they’d heard gunshots and broken down the door to find the victims already deceased. Both held guns, and there were bullet holes in the walls, but there was no trace of blood or wounds. 

Sherlock scanned the scene in that way of his, almost bouncing up and down with enthusiasm, finally announcing that they should dispatch someone to keep an eye on the local hairdresser and he’d let Scotland Yard know more in the morning. The old woman who lived on the ground floor pinched him on the cheek and said wasn’t it so lovely that the police were on hand to keep them all safe, to the outrage of both him and Greg but rather to John’s amusement. Situation normal, in other words. 

At the corner, John turned; Sherlock was still going straight towards the flat and made it exactly three steps further before noticing he’d missed his companion, then darted back around and caught up.

“Where are you going?”

“Supermarket. We need to pick up something for dinner. Since a certain someone ate all the curry I made yesterday.” John felt a smile quirk his features; his potato curry was a nice, light dish, just the thing for absent-minded consumption in front of the telly, and Sherlock had been amenable to persuasion that he have a bowl, and another, and then just keep eating…so it was all gone now. Six servings the man had eaten, at least. It’d been such fun watching it all disappear. 

“Don’t worry about that. There’s a case on. I shall be too preoccupied for meals,” Sherlock said airily.

John’s smile faded. As weird and morbid as it was, he could understand, even sympathise with the detective’s unholy glee about having a case again; he wouldn’t still be here if he didn’t get some enjoyment from their investigations as well. So there was no point pretending to moralize in a fashion he didn’t truly feel, especially when Sherlock would surely detect and call him out on any such hypocrisy. But he liked Sherlock eating, had been pleased at getting the man into a regular routine of meals lately. Plumper, rounder, and altogether better-looking.

It wasn’t like it was a crime to find Sherlock attractive this way. Apparently even little old ladies thought so.

“Well, even if you’re not, I’m having tea tonight.” John said, with a touch of asperity, and quickened his steps. “Are you coming along or not?”

“But of course I am. You’re my sounding board.” He caught up, flapped his hands about in what a gesture John recognised – “hold my hand, get ready to run” was what that typically meant. Except they weren’t running from anything.

Almost, very nearly automatically, John reached out his own to take it, but paused too long – was he reading the other man’s signals right? Did he quite dare? – and the moment was lost when a cyclist barraged between the two of them. They continued on to the market, Sherlock babbling about his deductions, guesses, things he’d noticed about the victim that couldn’t be of any use whatsoever for the case but amused him to mention (“none of the neighbours liked him, that was obvious, even aside from his not being the sociable type. A man of independent means, as he certainly wasn’t working for a living. Had a morbid fear of rats. And he had a run-in with a terrier recently, you can tell by the hairs and the pattern of the bite marks in his boots”). 

John, meanwhile, collected ingredients. Chicken stir-fry, he thought. Nice and quick, and spicy. Sherlock liked spicy foods, not least because the process of their preparation smelt so much more vividly than most dishes. It’d be just the thing to tempt a placid appetite. As he paid the cashier and started back towards the flat, he even allowed himself to hope that for success. 

And at first the hopes seemed justified; Sherlock stayed around in the kitchen while John worked, even offered to help cut up the vegetables and the chicken. John readily agreed, tumbled two plump, juicy tomatoes out of the grocery sack. A crisp yellow pepper, a glossy red one, and there, a purple onion. A couple of chicken breasts. Everything he needed to prepare a succulent dish. 

Sherlock got halfway through, before stopping mid-chop and staring dazedly off into the distance, in the way he did when viewing that Mind Palace of his. John looked at him, sighed, gently removed the knife and carried on with the preparations. Some rice, put on to boil on the stove – white, though from a health perspective it should have been brown, but he had some broken left over from a tremendous rice pudding last week and wanted to use it up (the amount of butter alone Sherlock had eaten in that! He sighed just thinking of it). Then the slicing of the vegetables, then chopping the chicken breasts. A few items from the fridge – mushrooms, ginger. Start the olive oil heating in a pan; he applied the spicing with no light hand, very conscious of the rich scent of garlic and peppercorns, ginger and chilli. The chicken hit the hot oil with something less than the traditional hot sizzle – a little more patience might have been beneficial – but it would suffice for coating. Wouldn’t matter too much once cooked, anyway. He found his wooden spoon and pushed the meat around for a few minutes, then added the flora. The combination smelt familiar, tantalising.

Sherlock stayed put during the whole process, muttering something about motives so obvious that the crimes they were connected to had to be simpler, but followed into the living room when John brought the dishes out there. 

“You’re still not having any?” John asked, resentful that he already knew the answer.

“No. No, you go ahead without me.” He was sprawled over a chair, gazing vaguely at nothing. As he’d been doing for the last half-hour already. 

John pursed his lips and decided to sit down and eat the whole stir-fry. By himself. If Sherlock regretted it afterwards that was his problem. 

It turned out to be more trouble than he’d realised – it was Sherlock who’d become practiced at stuffing this last month, not him, and there was a lot of rice to get through – and honestly, eating just wasn’t as much fun by himself. He turned on the telly, moodily flipping channels; why couldn’t BBC One ever have anything decent on, these days?  
Under the hum of presenters flapping their mouths tediously, he heard a low, bubbling grumble that most definitely was not coming from the television set.

John glanced over – all of Sherlock’s clothes were a snug fit on him now, with a month of good feeding filling out his form, so it was easy to see his stomach churning away under the tight purple shirt. The detective seemed oblivious to the hungry noises emanating from his middle, still musing over the facts he’d collected, collating and arranging them into some sort of order.

Returning to the task before him, John grimly spooned out another portion of rice and topped it with more stir-fry, then had a useful thought. “If you’re not going to eat any of it, I might as well just finish it all.”

“Do. Stop distracting me, would you? I’m thinking.”

Incoherent anger filled the ex-solider; John fought down his rage, surprised at the intensity of his upset – after all, Sherlock wasn’t behaving at all differently than he ever did during a case, hadn’t offered to change the typical ignore-everything-but-the-case ways. He dumped the remaining meat and veg into the rice pot and ate the whole mess, bit by bit. Not the slightest hint of a reaction from his roommate, except for the grumbles heightening in volume and intensity.

John went back into the kitchen and popped his secret weapon in the oven – a roly-poly pudding. The scent of the warming sweet percolated through the air. Surely, surely, anyone in their right mind wouldn’t object to at least a slice? And Sherlock loved puddings so. Only last week he’d been all over John about his raspberry one, admiring its construction, its taste and its maker in tones that had been something more than admiring. Despite everything, the thought of Sherlock’s delicate, supple compliments, as dry and yet basically sound, as enticing as their owner, still gave John a pleasurable kick far more than he’d have ever guessed a few light remarks about cooking could possibly offer. He peeked back in to see what the other man was making of it. 

Sherlock was…busily texting. “Lestrade’s contacted me. He says that I was right, the flat-owner was a secret agent. He also said that he’d rather that I contact my own brother next time I suspect such a thing, as he’s sure I wouldn’t have to wait on hold for twenty minutes.” He snorted. “I’d waste that much time in small talk. Mycroft’s been after me for a conversation lately, I’m putting it off for as long as possible.”

“When did you even say that to Lestrade?”

“Hairdresser. Secret code. Not the best idea to say you suspect an intelligence case in front of the suspects.”

You never told me you had a secret code with Lestrade, John thought, then put aside his irritation as being pettish. He had better things to be annoyed about just now, such as the fact that if he sat down now he was sure he’d be feeling entirely too heavily-laden to get back up and retrieve the pudding from the oven. This was a turn-up. Settle for leaning against the wall, then. “So I suppose that now we leave it to the professionals?”

“On the contrary,” Sherlock said, rising from the chair. “If you’re quite done stuffing your face, get your coat. We have suspects to interview, now that the police are out of the way.”

“All fourteen?”

“All fourteen and anyone else they happen to be living with. Starting with the dog lady. The one who can’t tell the difference between me and a fully-accredited, warrant card-holding, stupid hat-wearing member of our police forces.”

“Dog lady? You’re sure it isn’t cats?”

“Dog. Dog hairs are quite distinct from cat hairs if you know what you’re looking for. Singular, at that; it was clearly only one dog’s fur.”

John shrugged, decided that the exercise might just do him some good after all that food. He did take a moment to switch off the oven first – the pudding couldn’t come to any great harm in there in the meantime, could it? 

Sherlock waited by the door, just about dancing up and down with impatience. “Do hurry up, John? We haven’t all day.”

“Well, it’s not as if you’re going to stop for meals or anything, is it?” But John said that only under his breath.

So the walk back again (one of them huffing and moving a little heavily, the other charging down the street), then ringing the doorbell at the ground floor flat. Someone inside shouted “coming!” though it seemed to take a while until she shuffled to the door and looked out at them, with a bright expression but bleary, worn eyes.

“Mrs Ogletree?” Sherlock said graciously. “You might remember me. I’m the detective, from earlier. I’d like to ask you a few questions.” A bright smile, with that high-wattage charm that he exuded when and as he pleased. John thought that its only disadvantage was that it worked far too well on innocent bystanders, i.e. himself, in situations where its effects were entirely inappropriate to mention.

“Oh, of course. Do come in. I’ve been busy baking.” She led them past the front room into a small but pristine kitchen. John studied the room, trying to see it, analyze it, the way Sherlock would be doing. Fluffy knitted things everywhere. Cupboards with those awkward plastic child locks on them. A couple of dog dishes, washed out and left on the counter.

“My poor dear Trixie’s, those were,” Mrs Ogletree said when she saw John’s eye on them. “She died just last week. It was very sad, she was much too young.”

The lady gestured for them to sit down at her queer little round table and fussed rather helplessly with her oven, using the corner of her pink apron to pull it open and reveal several somewhat dried-out pastries. These were transferred to a shining silver platter, with warm sugar icing dripping all over the waxed paper. “And I’ll just put on the kettle now. You must try one of my tarts. Orange marmalade and almond, they’re perfectly delicious. You look rather peaky, my dear.” She glanced pointedly at Sherlock.

The detective demurred, convincingly enough – he still looked plump enough after all - and then the unthinkable happened. His stomach betrayed its emptiness with a cavernous growl that turned into a furious, hollow roaring, very audible in the quiet kitchen.

Sherlock turned a shade of pink that would have done credit to a northern sunset. Not a bad look on him, John had to admit, set off his dark coat and scarf rather nicely, but…oh dear.

Their sweet old lady smiled warmly and handed over the whole platter; Sherlock cringed, closed his eyes and stuffed one into his mouth at random. The tidbit didn’t much to quell the growls and rumbles; he blinked and looked disconsolately at the unfilled teacup in front of him. 

“Isn’t it nice? My own recipe, I’m so very proud of it.”

“It’s very nice,” Sherlock mumbled around another mouthful of icing. Without his usual air of haughty superiority, he looked completely deflated.

John, flushing in sympathetic embarrassment himself now, reached over and picked up a tart too – the last thing he wanted right now was more food, but it might ease his friend’s discomfort a touch. He took a bite and immediately spat it out. Bits went all over the daintily embroidered tablecloth. 

“You know, that’s quite stupid, trying to poison your investigators. You must realise that you’ve given yourself away now, right?”

“Wha-what?” Sherlock said. He looked on stupidly for a moment, then snapped into focus. “Cyanide.”

Mrs Ogletree delivered herself of a series of swears most outrageous for a lovely old lady and went after Sherlock with the contents of her knife drawer. It was surprising how very many sharp objects she had in there, really.

John had a nasty slice across one arm and Sherlock had been nicked by the time they’d pinned her down and swaddled her in the now thoroughly maltreated tablecloth, but it was the two of them against one and once the knots were secure, she stopped struggling quite so much. Sherlock yanked the back door open and made it out into the garden, frantic to get out into fresh air and a breeze; his face was turning rosier by the second. A bad sign, John thought with clinical coolness: he must already be metabolising the poison.

The detective pulled out his mobile, fingers shaking as they passed rapidly over the keys; trust the man to report his own murder, John thought, as he started wrenching the locks off the cupboards. A moment of rummaging later, and he was crying out in relief as his hand closed round a familiar green tin.

“Golden syrup! Brilliant, glucose is just what you need right now.”

“But she might have poisoned that as well,” Sherlock called out.

“Don’t be ridiculous, she didn’t expect us to eat anything except what she put in front of us. We don’t have have time for second-guessing, and it should help stabilise you until the ambulance comes.” He came out, propped Sherlock up against the fence and held the tin to the man’s lips. “Now hurry up, drink this down and don’t die on me, please!”

Sherlock shuddered and started gulping the syrup obediently. Even in the heat and shock of the moment, John couldn’t help but feel a half-guilty twinge of delight – the intimacy of the moment, as he forced sustenance into a body that not only wanted but utterly needed all that could be provided for it. The high-intensity of danger that stung his own nerves into vivid life, that vivid awareness, knowledge of each second as an individual, precious that only came when death was in the air. With his friend’s life on the line, now more than ever; he intended to stuff Sherlock for all he was worth.

A teaspoon helped spoon out the remainder of the tin as the flow lessened. Syrup poured out onto Sherlock’s cheekbones, staining them attractively; John’s hands were sticky with it as he pulled them away. 

“Good start, but you’ll need more food to slow down the absorption.” He dashed back into the house as fast as he could, found an old Christmas pudding tucked away and tore off the wrappings. This time the detective needed no prompting to take it – he chewed ravenously at the soft, brandy-scented lump, while John supported him and made sure he didn’t choke. Crumbs went everywhere but he managed to ingest most of it.

“More,” Sherlock whispered, when he’d finished. “Get me more.”

There was more. Two packs of chocolate wafers, small and light enough to be snapped down in a bite apiece, which Sherlock did. A dusty jar of blackcurrant preserves, sound but so sweet that when John sniffed at it he nearly choked at the sheer sugar content – that didn’t flow out, and he had to use the teaspoon to feed it into his friend’s eager mouth. He tried to remember whether caffeine was contra-indicated, thought it wasn’t and poured a big bottle of Irn-Bru down the detective’s throat, or half of it anyway – Sherlock pushed him away after that, giggling hilariously between gasps, rubbing a stomach suddenly engorged with soda.

“John, it – tickles so – must breathe”. He gulped down air, frantic for oxygen. John wondered if he dared go in search of an oxygen canister in the flat, decided he’d better not – Mrs Ogletree was clearly made of strong stuff, it didn’t seem likely she had the stuff in any event.

The ambulance arrived at that point, finally, with experts better qualified in poisoning than he and the antidote kit. John kept an eye on the medical professionals while he explained the situation to the police officers, who wanted to know why a distinctly irritated old lady was tied up shouting in her own kitchen shouting profanities at them all. He desperately wanted to come along to the hospital, but the doctors assured him that Sherlock was conscious and likely to remain so, so he stayed put to help Lestrade sort out the situation. The detective inspector arrived shortly thereafter and didn’t fail him; after they’d sorted out the facts, he had John sent to the hospital in a police car at top speed.

He arrived, blagged his way through (“I’m his personal doctor, I am”) and with very little trouble found Sherlock, lying in bed with an IV taped into his arm and a very bored expression.

“I was going to ask if you’d had a confession yet, but the situation seems to call for more drastic measures. Are you all right?”

“I feel a bit sick,” John confessed. “All that food, and then all of that adrenaline on top of it…it’s maybe not the best combination.”

“You didn’t eat – oh, of course you didn’t. That stir-fry. I suppose there’s nothing left for me?”

“No. You didn’t seem to want any.”

“Pity.” He pushed himself upright, with an effort. “Now the case is over, I think I’d rather have enjoyed it.”

John allowed himself a smile. 

“We did get the confession, too. Mrs Ogletree said that she’d meant to poison her neighbour with the same kind of cyanide tarts she gave us, but when she came by to drop them off, the other man was there and she couldn’t tell which was which, so she just told them both to eat them. Seems that they’d been in the middle of some kind of showdown they’d only interrupted on her behalf.” He paused. “Mycroft showed up, who knows why, and told me that it was a ridiculous stroke of good fortune because the other man must have been an imposter intending to replace a government agent, and not a very good one or else they wouldn’t both be dead now.”

“Trust Mycroft to turn somersaults about someone’s death giving him a minor advantage in his intelligence work. So. Motive?”

“Well, she blamed him for poisoning her dog. Thought it was a sort of poetic justice, or something. It was a terrier, if that helps.”

“Of course. The bitten shoes.” Sherlock lay back against the pillows, looking moody. “Right line of thought, wrong reasoning. And I really ought to have recognised the flavour myself, straight off. What kind of detective allows himself to be poisoned on a case?”

“A very hungry one, evidently,” John said. He drew the chair up as close as it’d come to the bed, and allowed himself a grunt of relief. All things considered, he thought he had the right to call it a stressful day.

“This is exactly why I shouldn’t eat on cases.”

“Nonsense. This is why you should eat on cases, so your judgement isn’t so impaired by hunger that you miss the obvious.”

“I suppose you identified the flavour yourself, of course?”

“I was on the lookout for something wrong. She’d just finished baking them, she said. But they were all dry, as though they’d been waiting there a while, it didn’t make sense that she’d have iced them and then put them back in the oven, and anyway bitter marmalade with almonds? That’s someone who’s read too many detective novels.”

“Ah. Very logical deduction of yours,” Sherlock murmured, apparently unaware of the little shiver of delight this gave his companion. “You mean, she was expecting us.”

“Looks that way. She got paranoid after we left, thought that we were sure to track her down and thought she’d jump first.”

“Considering who was investigating her, she was perfectly right. I wish you could stay put,” Sherlock said unexpectedly. “I’m not especially fond of hospitals. Or hospital food.”

“Well, when they let you out…”

“Yes?”

“Be easy to feed you up properly. I already have a roly-poly pudding waiting for you.”

“The one you were making?” Sherlock blushed again. “Yes, I rushed us both off to do more investigations before I’d thought things through properly, just because I couldn’t stand it any longer. It was either flee the flat or break down and eat some of it.”

“I hope you’re not prejudiced against orange marmalade after what you’ve been through, because that’s the flavour.”

“I shall look forward to it.” Despite himself, the detective’s eyes closed. “Urgh. Sorry. Near-death experiences can be tiring.”

His left hand was lying on the coverlet. John took a breath, picked it up in both of his and squeezed. It felt warm, reassuringly alive against his own.

“I’ll stick around for as long as they’ll let me,” John promised. “Maybe even find a bag of crisps in a vending machine somewhere and smuggle it in here for you.”

Sherlock managed a slight chuckle before falling into a contented sleep, waiting for the morrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone seemed to like this one on Tumblr, and I suppose I can see why; it’s short and focused. Doing the research was a good thing – this would have been a far shorter fic, until I found out the symptoms of cyanide poisoning and found that the countermeasures taken to combat it would be unexpectedly usable for purposes of Fatlock story-telling. Which defined the direction I should take this. 
> 
> I spend a fair amount of time in these working out logical cases for Sherlock to be working on – there’s no point his being a private detective otherwise – and therefore went to some trouble making this work out as something that could be deduced logically (or at least that the duo could have deduced logically together). Aside from that, yeah, it’s just fun.


End file.
